It was originally “Rah, rah, Jayhawk,” and it was dreamed up, the story goes, by a chemistry professor on a train in 1886. It wasn’t until three years later that the iconic chant at Kansas basketball games was altered to the current “Rock chalk, Jayhawk.”

Why is this important to San Diego State?

Because the Aztecs will be hearing it echoing through Allen Fieldhouse next season.

SDSU is close to finalizing a two-game deal with Kansas in men’s basketball, Coach Steve Fisher confirmed Wednesday night. The plan is for the Aztecs play in Lawrence, Kan., next season – most likely in early January – and host the Jayhawks at Viejas Arena in 2015-16.

“We’re looking to schedule some marquee games with national programs, and this opportunity presented itself,” said Fisher, who has talked about further upgrading his nonconference schedule with the move to the Big West next season. “Kansas was looking for a big game, and we said: ‘We’re ready.’ This speaks to what Kansas thinks of our program and the appeal it will have to a national audience.

“This will be good for our program.”

For an ascendant basketball program like SDSU, it doesn’t get much bigger than KU. The 2,070 all-time wins (second in Division I history behind Kentucky). The 55 conference titles. The 29 straight winning seasons. The 23 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament. The 14 Final Fours. The three national championships.

Or look at it this way: The Jayhawks’ first coach was Dr. James Naismith, the guy who invented the sport, and he’s the only coach in school history with a losing record.

The Aztecs have played Kansas just twice, in a similar home-and-home series in the late 1970s. They won 81-69 at the then-San Diego Sports Arena in 1978 over a Jayhawks team ranked No. 7, then lost the following year in Lawrence 79-66.

The most recent interaction between the programs came last year, when Loyola Marymount transfer Kevin Young decommitted from SDSU and instead went to Kansas – leaving the Aztecs with a depleted roster and eliciting candid exchanges in the media between Fisher and Jayhawks coach Bill Self.

Young will be a senior this season, meaning he wouldn’t face the school he spurned.

“That’s history,” Fisher said. “I’ve never been one to say we’ll never talk. I’ve always had a friendship and a relationship with Bill Self. He’s good person and an exceptional coach in a marquee, blue-blood program. That to me is no longer a topic of discussion. What happened, happened. We talked and it’s over.”

The game is part of what Fisher hopes will be a nonconference schedule dotted with marquee games to counterbalance the RPI hit his team will take in the Big West, which was the nation’s 26th-ranked conference last season. The Mountain West was No. 5.

The Aztecs also will play in the DirecTV Classic next season, an annual Thanksgiving tournament in Anaheim (formerly the 76 Classic) that this year features Cal, Saint Mary’s and Xavier. There has been talk of playing several Big East schools as well as part of the SDSU football team’s move to that league.

Kansas, though, will be special. In 30-plus years of collegiate coaching, Fisher has never been to Allen Fieldhouse.

“I’ll be excited to go there,” Fisher said. “There’s a lot of history in that building, on that campus, for basketball.”